Modi, Shah to visit poll-bound Assam on Saturday

Guwahati, Jan. 22 (IANS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah will visit poll-bound Assam on Saturday to attend different government events to campaign for the assembly polls, likely to be held in April-May.

Officials and BJP sources said that Modi and Shah do not have any common programme in the Bharatiya Janata Party ruled state.

The Prime Minister on Saturday would launch a mega programme of the Assam government to distribute land "patta" (land allotment permit) to over one lakh landless indigenous people at a function at Jerenga Pothar in eastern Assam's Sivasagar district.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who visited the PM's meeting venue to review the preparations, said that the Prime Minister would ceremonially start the distribution of land 'patta' to more than one lakh indigenous people who have been living uncertain lives for decades. "No government in Assam has carried out such a people-friendly initiative in the past."

He said many pieces of government land were encroached by suspected illegal settlers and the BJP government would evict those illegal encroachers and provide the land rights to the indigenous people, comprising tribals, ex-tea garden labourers and other backward communities.

According to the officials, the state government headed by the Chief Minister Sonowal has already issued "land patta" to more than one lakh landless indigenous families.

Officials said Shah would launch the Ayushman Bharat healthcare scheme for central paramilitary force personnel in Guwahati in presence of Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan here on Saturday.

After attending the Guwahati event, Shah would go to Shillong where he would chair the 69th plenary session of the North Eastern Council (NEC), the nodal agency for the socio-economic and infrastructural development of the eight states of the region.

Shah would come back again in Assam on Sunday and attend a programme to celebrate the first anniversary of the signing of the Bodoland Territorial Region Accord, which facilitates political autonomy and address a gathering in western Assam's Kokrajhar, bordering West Bengal.

In all, 1,615 cadres of four National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) factions had laid down their arms on January 30 last year after the signing of the Bodo peace accord with the central government on January 27, 2020 in New Delhi in the presence of Union Home minister Amit Shah.